The Impossibility of Keeping the Torah Today

The Impossibility of Keeping the Torah Today

Why the Mosaic Covenant Cannot Be Observed as Written—and Why the New Testament Says Christians Are No Longer Under It

A growing number of Christians are being taught that genuine obedience to God requires returning to the Torah. Often associated with the Hebrew Roots movement, Torah-observant Christianity, and certain Messianic congregations, these teachings emphasize observing the seventh-day Sabbath, following biblical dietary restrictions, celebrating Israel's appointed festivals, and keeping the commandments given through Moses. Some go further, arguing that Christians who do not observe these requirements are living in disobedience to God.

The appeal is understandable. Christians should take God's commandments seriously, recognize the continuing authority of the Old Testament as Scripture, and reject the notion that grace provides permission to sin. Jesus Himself declared that He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). Surely, then, Christians should want to obey God's instructions.

But there is a fundamental problem with the claim that Christians must keep the Torah: the New Testament repeatedly teaches that believers are no longer under the Mosaic covenant, and the complete requirements of that covenant cannot be observed today.

This is not simply a disagreement over whether Christians should worship on Saturday or Sunday, eat pork, or celebrate Passover. The issue is much larger. If the Mosaic Law remains binding upon Christians, which commandments must they obey? Who determines which ones are still applicable? And by what biblical authority can someone insist upon keeping certain commandments while setting aside others?

These questions cannot be answered by appealing to a handful of favorite commandments. They require us to examine what the Torah actually is, what covenant it established, how Jesus fulfilled it, and what the apostles taught about the believer's relationship to the Law.

What Are the Torah and the Law?

The Hebrew word תּוֹרָה (tôrāh) means instruction, teaching, or direction. It derives from the Hebrew root ירה (yārâ), associated with instructing or directing someone. In Scripture, the word can refer generally to instruction, as when Proverbs speaks of a mother's teaching (Proverbs 1:8), or more specifically to the instruction God gave Israel through Moses.

The Torah also designates the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books contain far more than commandments. They recount creation, humanity's fall, the flood, the patriarchs, God's promises to Abraham, Israel's deliverance from Egypt, and the establishment of the covenant at Mount Sinai.

This distinction matters because everything written in the Torah is Scripture, but not everything written in the Torah is a command addressed to Christians—or even to every Israelite. Some instructions were given to particular individuals, others to priests, others to men or women under specific circumstances, and still others to Israel as a covenant nation.

The Greek word commonly translated "law" in the New Testament is νόμος (nomos). Like torah, its meaning depends upon context. It can refer to the Mosaic Law, Scripture more generally, or a governing principle. When Paul discusses the Law of Moses, circumcision, and justification, or when Hebrews discusses the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices, the covenant established through Moses is clearly in view.

That covenant was not made indiscriminately with all humanity. Moses specifically identified its recipients when he declared:

"The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today." (Deuteronomy 5:2–3, NASB 1995)

Immediately following this declaration, Moses recounts the Ten Commandments. The Sabbath itself is identified as a sign between God and the children of Israel throughout their generations (Exodus 31:13–17). Nehemiah 9:13–14 similarly associates the revelation of the Sabbath with God's instruction to Israel through Moses at Sinai.

The Mosaic covenant contained commandments governing worship, sacrifices, priesthood, purity, diet, marriage, agriculture, property, judicial proceedings, and national life. These were not originally presented as three independent legal codes labeled moral, ceremonial, and civil. Those distinctions can be useful for theological analysis, but the Torah itself presents the commandments as parts of one covenantal arrangement.

Recognizing this does not diminish the Torah. The Law reveals God's holiness, exposes sin, and provides the historical and theological foundation for understanding Christ. However, learning from the Torah as inspired Scripture is not the same as living under the Mosaic covenant as a binding legal administration.

Jesus Came to Fulfill the Law

Those advocating Torah observance frequently appeal to Matthew 5:17, where Jesus declares:

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." (NASB 1995)

The Greek word translated "fulfill" is πληρόω (plēroō), meaning to fill, complete, accomplish, or bring to fulfillment. Jesus was not declaring that the Old Testament was mistaken or that God's previous revelation should be discarded. He was announcing that the Law and Prophets found their intended fulfillment in Him.

The following verse, Matthew 5:18, emphasizes the enduring authority of God's revelation until all is accomplished. Yet this must be understood alongside the New Testament's explanation of what Christ accomplished. The sacrificial system anticipated His sacrifice, the priesthood anticipated His priestly ministry, and the covenant itself anticipated the new covenant promised through Jeremiah.

At the Last Supper, Jesus identified His approaching death with that new covenant (Luke 22:20). He was not simply adding another religious practice to the Mosaic system. He was inaugurating the covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:31–34, a covenant explicitly distinguished from the one established when God delivered Israel from Egypt.

The New Testament therefore does not present Jesus as an opponent of Moses. Rather, Moses and the Law pointed forward to Him. Christ's fulfillment of the Law is precisely why Christians must interpret their relationship to it through His completed work and the teaching of His apostles.

Acts: The Church Already Settled the Question

The question of whether Christians must observe the Mosaic Law arose almost immediately in the early church. Acts 15 records that certain believers insisted Gentile converts needed circumcision and obedience to the Law of Moses. This was not merely a debate about salvation in the abstract. Acts 15:5 explicitly identifies the demand that Gentiles be directed to observe the Law.

The apostles and elders gathered in Jerusalem to address the controversy. Peter argued that God had accepted Gentile believers through faith and challenged those who wanted to place the Mosaic yoke upon them. He emphasized that salvation comes through the grace of the Lord Jesus rather than through covenantal observance.

The council's decision was to reject the demand that Gentile believers become subject to the Mosaic Law. Its letter instructed them to abstain from things associated with idolatry, sexual immorality, strangled animals, and blood (Acts 15:19–29). These instructions addressed pressing concerns of holiness and fellowship within the early church. They were not a preliminary installment of the entire Mosaic code, with additional requirements to be imposed later.

Acts 21:20–25 is especially important because it shows that many Jewish Christians continued observing ancestral customs while the apostles reaffirmed their separate decision concerning Gentile believers. Jewish cultural observance and the obligation to keep the Mosaic covenant were not treated as identical questions.

The relevant passages are Acts 10:9–16, 10:28, 13:38–39, 15:1–29, and 21:20–25.

Romans: Released From the Law, Not Released to Sin

Paul's letter to the Romans explains the believer's relationship to the Law with remarkable clarity. After establishing that justification comes through faith rather than works of the Law (Romans 3:20–28), Paul addresses the new life believers possess in Christ.

In Romans 6:14, he declares that Christians are not under Law but under grace. The Greek expression οὐ γάρ ἐστε ὑπὸ νόμον ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ χάριν (ou gar este hypo nomon alla hypo charin) explicitly contrasts being under Law with being under grace.

Paul immediately anticipates the objection that freedom from the Law might encourage sin. His response is emphatic: "May it never be!" (Romans 6:15, NASB 1995). Christians are not released from obedience to God; they are released from their former bondage so that they may live in righteousness.

Romans 7 makes the covenantal transition even clearer. Paul explains that believers have died to the Law through the body of Christ so that they might belong to the risen Lord. In verse 6, he states that believers have been released from the Law and now serve in the newness of the Spirit rather than the oldness of the letter.

Which Law is Paul discussing? The following verse identifies the commandment against coveting. This is one of the Ten Commandments, making it difficult to argue that Paul's teaching concerns only ceremonial regulations while leaving the Decalogue untouched as an unchanged covenantal code.

Romans 8:3–4 explains that what the Law could not accomplish because of human weakness, God accomplished through His Son, so that the Law's righteous requirement might be fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit. Romans 10:4 then identifies Christ as the τέλος (telos) of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The word can communicate an end, goal, or culmination, and Paul's argument presents Christ as the decisive fulfillment of the Law's role in righteousness.

Relevant passages include Romans 3:20–31, 4:13–16, 6:14–18, 7:1–13, 8:1–4, 10:4, 13:8–10, and 14:1–17.

Corinthians: The Old Covenant and the Law of Christ

Paul makes an especially revealing distinction in 1 Corinthians 9:20–21. He explains that when ministering among Jewish people, he could live as one under the Law, although he was not himself under the Law. When among Gentiles, he could live as one without the Law, while remaining accountable to God through Christ.

He describes himself as ἔννομος Χριστοῦ (ennomos Christou), meaning subject to the law or authority of Christ.

This is a distinction that modern discussions frequently overlook. Christians are not without moral obligations simply because they are no longer under the Mosaic covenant. Their governing authority is Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul contrasts the old covenant with the new covenant of the Spirit. He specifically refers to the ministry engraved on stones (2 Corinthians 3:7), unmistakably connecting his discussion to the Ten Commandments. The old covenant possessed genuine glory, but the new covenant surpasses it. Paul describes the former administration as passing away in comparison with the enduring glory of the Spirit's ministry.

The relevant passages are 1 Corinthians 7:19, 8:8, 9:19–23, 10:23–33, and 2 Corinthians 3:3–18.

Galatians: The Law Cannot Be Kept Selectively

Galatians is perhaps the strongest New Testament response to those who insist that Christians must adopt the Mosaic Law. Paul confronts teachers who were pressuring Gentile believers to accept circumcision and Jewish covenantal requirements.

He explains that those who rely upon works of the Law are under a curse because the Law demands obedience to everything written in it (Galatians 3:10). His argument is not that God's commandments were evil, but that the Law cannot provide the justification and life that come through Christ.

In Galatians 3:24–25, Paul describes the Law as a παιδαγωγός (paidagōgos), a guardian or supervisor whose function was temporary. Now that faith has come, believers are no longer under that guardian. The Mosaic Law served a genuine purpose in God's redemptive plan, but that purpose was directed toward Christ.

Paul also warns against returning to bondage through religious observances involving days, months, seasons, and years (Galatians 4:9–11). Although the passage's relationship to former pagan practices and Jewish calendrical observances requires attention, its broader context unmistakably condemns making such observances necessary for covenantal standing.

His argument becomes particularly forceful in Galatians 5:3, where he explains that a man accepting circumcision as a covenantal obligation becomes responsible for keeping the whole Law. The Greek expression ὅλον τὸν νόμον (holon ton nomon) means precisely that: the entire Law.

This is not a condemnation of circumcision as a medical procedure or of Jewish believers who voluntarily retain ancestral customs. Paul himself circumcised Timothy for missionary reasons (Acts 16:3). The issue is accepting circumcision as a requirement for belonging to God's covenant people or being justified before Him.

But the principle exposes a serious inconsistency in selective Torah observance. Someone cannot insist that the Mosaic covenant remains binding while claiming the freedom to choose which of its requirements deserve obedience.

Paul concludes that believers are called to freedom, but not freedom to indulge the flesh. They are to serve one another through love and walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:13–18). He later identifies this life of love and mutual responsibility with fulfilling the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

Relevant passages include Galatians 2:16–21, 3:1–29, 4:4–11, 4:21–31, 5:1–18, and 6:2, 12–15.

Ephesians and Colossians: The Covenant's Boundaries Have Changed

Ephesians 2:11–22 explains how Jesus reconciled Jews and Gentiles into one body. Paul describes Christ as removing the dividing wall and rendering inoperative the Law of commandments contained in ordinances as a barrier between them.

The Greek verb καταργέω (katargeō), used in Ephesians 2:15, communicates bringing something to an end in its operative function. Paul is not declaring that God's holiness has changed. He is explaining that the Mosaic covenant no longer functions as the boundary defining membership among God's people.

Colossians 2:16–17 addresses the practical consequences. Paul instructs believers not to allow others to judge them concerning food, drink, festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. He describes these things as a σκιά (skia), a shadow, whose substance or reality belongs to Christ.

The sequence of festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths reflects familiar Old Testament terminology for annual, monthly, and weekly sacred observances (1 Chronicles 23:31; Ezekiel 45:17). This makes the argument that Paul excludes the weekly Sabbath difficult to sustain.

The point is not that observing a particular day is inherently sinful. Rather, these observances must not be imposed as requirements for Christian standing. Romans 14:5–6 similarly allows believers to differ in their regard for particular days while remaining accountable to the Lord.

Relevant passages include Ephesians 2:11–22 and Colossians 2:8–23.

Hebrews: The Covenant Made When Israel Left Egypt Is Obsolete

Hebrews provides the most comprehensive explanation of the transition from the Mosaic covenant to the new covenant. The author establishes that Jesus is a superior high priest whose ministry accomplishes what the Levitical priesthood could never accomplish.

Hebrews 7:12 states that a change in priesthood necessarily involves a change in Law. The Greek noun μετάθεσις (metathesis) means change, transfer, or alteration. This is essential because Jesus belongs to the tribe of Judah, not Levi. Under the Mosaic covenant, He would not qualify to serve as a Levitical priest. Yet He is the great high priest of the new covenant.

Hebrews 8 then removes any possible ambiguity about which covenant is being replaced.

Quoting Jeremiah 31:31–34, the author identifies the promised new covenant as one unlike the covenant God made when He took Israel by the hand to lead them out of Egypt (Hebrews 8:8–9).

This is the Mosaic covenant. The historical identification is explicit.

The author is not merely discussing a collection of later Jewish traditions or a handful of ceremonial regulations. He is discussing the covenant established through Moses after the exodus.

Hebrews 8:13 declares that by speaking of a new covenant, God has made the first obsolete. The Greek verb πεπαλαίωκεν (pepalaiōken), from παλαιόω (palaioō), means to make old or obsolete.

Hebrews 9:1 then explains that the first covenant included regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. The following chapters discuss its priesthood, sacrifices, purification rituals, and limitations. Hebrews 10:1 describes the Law as a shadow of the good things to come, while 10:9 explains that Christ takes away the first in order to establish the second.

The author's reasoning is comprehensive. The Levitical priesthood has been superseded by Christ's priesthood, repeated sacrifices by His once-for-all sacrifice, and the old covenant by the new.

This is not the destruction of God's earlier revelation. It is the accomplishment of what that revelation anticipated.

Relevant passages include Hebrews 7:11–28, 8:1–13, 9:1–28, 10:1–18, and 12:18–24.

James: The Whole Law Means the Whole Law

James is sometimes presented as though he contradicts Paul by requiring Christians to return to the Mosaic Law. But James is addressing a different problem: people who profess faith while failing to demonstrate obedience and love.

He describes the command to love one's neighbor as the royal law (James 2:8) and speaks of the law of liberty (James 1:25; 2:12). Genuine faith, he argues, produces conduct consistent with God's character.

Nevertheless, James makes a statement with important implications for anyone claiming to keep the Mosaic Law:

"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all." (James 2:10, NASB 1995)

The Greek phrase ὅλον τὸν νόμον (holon ton nomon) is the same expression found in Galatians 5:3: the whole Law.

James immediately illustrates his point by referring to the commandments against adultery and murder. His argument is that God's commandments cannot be treated as unrelated rules whose authority can be accepted or rejected according to personal preference.

James is not commanding the church to enforce every Mosaic civil penalty. But he does affirm the indivisible authority of the Law when someone claims to stand under it.

Together, Paul and James create a formidable problem for selective Torah observance. Paul warns that accepting the Mosaic Law as a covenantal obligation brings responsibility for the whole Law, while James explains that violating one commandment makes someone a transgressor.

Relevant passages include James 1:22–25, 2:8–13, and 2:14–26.

Was Every Mosaic Regulation God's Ultimate Ideal?

Interestingly, God Himself makes a striking distinction in Ezekiel 20. First, He describes giving Israel His statutes and ordinances, “by which, if a man observes them, he will live” (Ezekiel 20:11, NASB 1995). Yet following Israel's persistent rebellion, He declares, “I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live” (Ezekiel 20:25, NASB 1995).

The following verse connects this judgment with Israel's abhorrent practice of sacrificing their firstborn. This likely describes God judicially giving them over to the destructive practices they had chosen, much as Romans 1:24–28 describes God giving rebellious humanity over to its desires. It does not mean that God's original commandments were evil.

Nevertheless, Scripture does distinguish between God's ultimate intentions and provisions addressing the realities of a fallen people. Jesus Himself explained that Moses permitted divorce because of Israel's hardness of heart, although “from the beginning it has not been this way” (Matthew 19:8, NASB 1995). Paul similarly explains that the Law “was added because of transgressions” until the promised Seed, Christ, would come (Galatians 3:19).

The Mosaic covenant was neither defective nor God's final covenantal arrangement. It served a particular people, under particular circumstances, for a particular purpose in redemptive history. Understanding that distinction is essential when determining whether its regulations remain binding upon Christians living under the new covenant.

The Practical Impossibility of Keeping the Torah Today

Even if we temporarily set aside the New Testament's explicit teaching that Christians are no longer under the Mosaic covenant, another problem remains: the complete requirements of that covenant cannot be carried out today.

This is not merely because certain commandments are inconvenient or culturally unfamiliar. It is because the Mosaic covenant established an interconnected religious, judicial, and national system requiring institutions, personnel, locations, and procedures that no longer exist.

Consider the sacrificial system. Leviticus commands offerings for sin, guilt, purification, thanksgiving, and other purposes. These sacrifices were to be administered through the priesthood according to detailed regulations. Deuteronomy 12 further restricts sacrificial worship to the place God chooses.

Today there is no functioning Jerusalem temple, no operating Levitical altar, and no priesthood performing the sacrificial requirements of the Mosaic covenant.

A Torah-observant Christian may correctly answer that Jesus fulfilled these sacrifices. But that concession establishes the very point under discussion: the Mosaic Law is no longer being observed in its original covenantal form because Christ has fulfilled and superseded its sacrificial provisions.

The same problem arises with the Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16 requires the high priest to enter the Most Holy Place with sacrificial blood, perform specific purification rituals, and send away the live goat bearing Israel's sins. These are not optional embellishments. They are commanded elements of the observance.

Modern believers may fast or commemorate the Day of Atonement, but they cannot perform the ceremony prescribed in Leviticus 16. Hebrews explains why Christians no longer need to: Jesus has entered the greater heavenly sanctuary through His own blood (Hebrews 9:11–14).

Passover presents a similar difficulty. Exodus 12 describes a lamb sacrificed and eaten according to specific requirements, while Deuteronomy 16:5–6 subsequently regulates Passover sacrifice at the place chosen by God. Celebrating a modern Passover meal or Christian Seder may provide valuable historical instruction, but it is not equivalent to performing the complete sacrificial requirements of the Mosaic covenant.

The biblical festivals likewise involved prescribed offerings that cannot presently be performed as written (Numbers 28–29). Observing their dates while omitting their required sacrifices is not keeping the entire Torah.

What About the Sabbath—and Its Penalties?

Perhaps the most revealing example concerns the Sabbath.

Many Torah-observant Christians insist that keeping the seventh-day Sabbath is an enduring obligation. They cite Exodus 20:8–11 and correctly observe that the commandment was part of the Ten Commandments.

But the Mosaic covenant did not merely command Sabbath rest. It also prescribed judicial penalties for violating that command.

Exodus 31:14–15 establishes death as the penalty for certain violations of the Sabbath. Numbers 15:32–36 records an Israelite gathering wood on the Sabbath. After the matter is brought before Moses, God commands that the man be put to death, and the congregation carries out the sentence.

Now consider the implications for someone insisting that Christians remain under the complete Mosaic Law.

Suppose a member of a Christian congregation deliberately violates the Sabbath. Would the congregation execute that person?

Almost certainly not, and rightly so. The church has not been commissioned to administer Israel's covenantal criminal justice system.

But here is the difficulty: if the Mosaic covenant remains binding in its entirety, the commandment was not merely to observe the Sabbath. It also included the obligation of Israel's covenant community to enforce the prescribed penalty.

Refusing to carry out that penalty while insisting that the entire covenant remains binding creates an obvious inconsistency.

Someone may respond that the Sabbath remains binding while its civil penalty does not. But that response acknowledges a change in how the Mosaic Law applies. The next question is unavoidable: Who authorized that change, and where does Scripture establish the distinction?

The New Testament provides an answer by identifying the new covenant as the governing relationship between God and His people. Christians are accountable to Christ, not commissioned to reproduce Israel's national legal system.

This is not an argument that modern Christians should execute Sabbath violators. It is precisely the opposite. It demonstrates why the Mosaic covenant cannot simply be transferred wholesale onto the church.

Other Commandments That Cannot Simply Be Ignored

The Sabbath is hardly the only example. Deuteronomy 21:18–21 prescribes a judicial procedure involving a persistently rebellious son who refuses correction, culminating in capital punishment. The matter was to be brought before the elders at the city gate and adjudicated within Israel's covenantal legal system.

Would a modern Torah-observant congregation carry out that command? If not, on what basis has it ceased to be binding?

Deuteronomy 13:6–11 prescribes death for someone who secretly entices another Israelite to worship other gods. The command is not merely to avoid idolatry but to enforce a particular judicial punishment. Yet the New Testament instructs churches to address unrepentant sin through correction and, when necessary, removal from fellowship (Matthew 18:15–17; 1 Corinthians 5:11–13), not through Israel's prescribed executions.

The agricultural commandments create additional difficulties. Leviticus 19:9–10 and Deuteronomy 24:19–22 require landowners to leave portions of their harvest for the poor, foreigner, widow, and orphan. These commandments reveal God's enduring concern for justice and generosity, but their precise administration presupposes Israel's agricultural society and covenantal land arrangements.

Deuteronomy 22:8 requires a parapet around the roof of a newly constructed house. Exodus 21 contains regulations concerning slavery, personal injury, and compensation. Leviticus 25 establishes the Jubilee, involving the return of hereditary property and the release of certain Israelite servants within a land system apportioned among the tribes.

The Jubilee is especially revealing because it cannot be reconstructed simply by deciding to celebrate its anniversary. Its commands presuppose identifiable ancestral landholdings, tribal inheritances, and Israel's covenantal economic structure.

Likewise, Numbers 5:11–31 prescribes a priestly procedure involving a husband who suspects his wife of adultery. The ritual requires a priest, holy water, dust from the tabernacle floor, and a grain offering. There is no legitimate way for a modern congregation to perform that procedure as written.

And what of the commandments governing ritual impurity after childbirth, contact with corpses, or certain bodily discharges? Leviticus 12–15 prescribes purification procedures, some requiring sacrifices administered by priests. These cannot be reproduced in their original form without the institutions the Law itself requires.

One could multiply examples, but the central issue remains the same. The Mosaic Law was an integrated covenantal system, not a collection of religious preferences from which Christians can select the practices they find meaningful.

Does This Mean Christians Can Ignore God's Commandments?

This is the objection that often follows, and it deserves a serious answer.

If Christians are no longer under the Mosaic Law, does that mean murder, adultery, theft, idolatry, and dishonesty are now acceptable?

Absolutely not. But the reason these actions remain sinful is not that Christians continue living under the Sinai covenant.

The New Testament repeatedly condemns these practices under the authority of Christ and His apostles. Jesus intensifies the moral demands concerning murder and adultery in Matthew 5:21–30. Paul condemns idolatry, sexual immorality, theft, greed, drunkenness, and other sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11. Ephesians 4–5 likewise commands Christians to abandon dishonesty, bitterness, sexual immorality, and corrupt behavior.

Romans 13:8–10 explains that love fulfills the Law's moral requirements concerning our treatment of others. Galatians 5:13–23 contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit, while Galatians 6:2 identifies bearing one another's burdens with fulfilling the law of Christ.

This distinction is essential. The moral character of God has not changed, but the covenant through which His people relate to Him has changed.

Christians do not refrain from murder because they remain under the Mosaic covenant's judicial system. They refrain because murder violates God's character, Christ's commandments, and the love of neighbor that the Spirit produces.

Similarly, Christians are not free to practice sexual immorality simply because they are no longer under the Law of Moses. The New Testament explicitly condemns sexual immorality and commands holiness.

In fact, the new covenant often demands more than external conformity to written regulations. Jesus addresses not only murder but unrighteous anger, not only adultery but lust, and not merely outward religious observance but the condition of the heart.

Paul's declaration that Christians are not under the Law must therefore be read alongside his equally emphatic insistence that they must not continue in sin.

The alternative to the Mosaic covenant is not lawlessness. It is life under the authority of

Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

What About Christians Who Voluntarily Observe the Torah?

There is an important distinction between voluntarily practicing certain customs and insisting that those customs are binding requirements of the new covenant.

A Christian may choose to rest on Saturday, avoid certain foods, celebrate Passover, or study Israel's festivals to better understand their biblical significance. Such practices may be meaningful and educational, provided they do not contradict the gospel or become grounds for judging other believers.

Paul allows liberty concerning particular days and food in Romans 14, while Colossians 2:16 specifically warns against allowing others to judge believers concerning dietary and calendrical observances.

The problem arises when voluntary practices are elevated into divine requirements that the apostles themselves did not impose.

It is one thing to say, "I observe the Sabbath because I find it spiritually beneficial." It is another to declare, "Christians who do not observe the Sabbath are disobeying God."

It is one thing to celebrate Passover as a remembrance of God's deliverance and its fulfillment in Christ. It is another to insist that Christians remain obligated to observe the Mosaic festival calendar.

The first concerns Christian liberty. The second concerns the authority of the old covenant over believers who belong to the new.

Paul's warnings in Galatians were directed precisely against the danger of turning covenantal observances into requirements for Christian standing.

The New Covenant Is Not an Incomplete Mosaic Covenant

One of the most significant mistakes in modern Torah-observant teaching is the assumption that the new covenant simply renews the Mosaic covenant while removing whichever provisions are now inconvenient or impossible to practice.

But Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 explicitly distinguish the new covenant from the covenant established when Israel came out of Egypt.

The new covenant does not represent God's abandonment of His earlier promises. It represents their fulfillment through Christ.

The Law anticipated a greater priest, a better sacrifice, a transformed people, and a covenant in which God's instruction would be written upon the hearts of His people.

That is why the New Testament speaks of the Law as a guardian whose purpose has been completed, a shadow whose substance has arrived, and a covenant whose administration has become obsolete.

Christians remain responsible to God's revealed will. They are called to holiness, obedience, love, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. But those obligations are now understood and practiced through the teaching of Jesus and His apostles rather than through submission to the Mosaic covenant as an unchanged legal system.

The New Testament does not merely make Torah observance unnecessary for salvation while leaving the entire covenant binding for daily life. It teaches a genuine covenantal transition.

Conclusion: We Are Not Called Back to Sinai

The Torah is inspired Scripture. It reveals God's holiness, exposes human sin, preserves Israel's history, and anticipates the coming of Jesus Christ. Christians should study it carefully, respect its authority as God's Word, and recognize its continuing value for instruction.

But respecting the Torah does not require pretending that the Mosaic covenant remains in force.

The apostles rejected the demand that Gentile Christians observe the Law of Moses. Paul declared that believers have been released from the Law and now serve in the newness of the Spirit. Galatians warned against returning to covenantal bondage, while Hebrews explicitly identified the covenant made after the exodus as obsolete in light of the new covenant established through Christ.

James and Paul both recognized that the Law cannot be treated as a collection of unrelated commandments from which someone may select preferred obligations.

And the practical difficulties are undeniable. Without the Levitical priesthood, temple, sacrificial system, covenantal courts, and tribal land arrangements, the Mosaic Law cannot be observed in its entirety as written. Those who insist upon selected commandments while disregarding others have already acknowledged, whether intentionally or not, that the covenant's original administration no longer operates.

The question is therefore not whether Christians should obey God. Of course they should. The question is which covenant governs their relationship with Him.

The New Testament answers that question consistently.

Christ has fulfilled what the Law anticipated. He is our sacrifice, our high priest, our mediator, and our Lord. His Spirit produces the obedience that external regulations could never accomplish through human effort alone.

Returning to the Mosaic covenant as a binding system does not make someone more faithful to the gospel. It risks overlooking the very fulfillment toward which that covenant pointed.

We are not called to reconstruct ancient Israel's covenantal system. We are called to follow Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the Law and established the new covenant through His blood.

The Torah pointed forward to Him. The apostles preached Him. And the new covenant calls us to live under His authority.

That is not abandoning God's Law.

It is recognizing what God accomplished through His Son.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB 1995). Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.